New England Clean Energy this week announced that installation of the largest residential solar electric system in central Massachusetts, and one of the largest in the state, has been completed in Grafton. The Hudson-based firm also designed the system, according to company president Mark Durrenberger. The 45,900-watt, ground-mounted solar electric system includes 180 Canadian Solar 255-watt solar panels mounted on 12 poles, and six PVI-7500 string inverters from Lawrence-based Solectria Renewables. Installation of the Grafton system, which included pole and panel installation, trenching and wiring, took place over six weeks from late August to early October. The system will be turned on in approximately four weeks after National Grid approves the system’s interconnection to the utility grid.

Chamber to launch annual food drive

The Corridor Nine Area Chamber of Commerce this month kicks off its annual food drive with the DoubleTree Hotel and members of the chamber’s young professionals group, HYPE9. The organization holds its first collection day for the food drive on Oct. 18 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Roche Brothers Supermarket in the Bay State Commons, Union Street, Westborough. The food drive, which runs from Oct. 18 through Dec. 12, will benefit the local food pantries of the chamber’s five core towns of Westborough, Northborough, Southborough, Shrewsbury and Grafton. Items that are needed include meals in a can (such as beef stew, chili, SpaghettiOs, corned beef hash, Sloppy Joes and Manwich), soups and chowders, macaroni and cheese, tuna fish, canned carrots, canned chicken, peanut butter and jelly, canned fruit, rice, ramen noodles, instant potatoes, dry powdered milk, Parmalat, 24-ounce ketchup, 30-ounce mayonnaise, boxed cereal, boxed Jell-O, granola bars and snacks for children, microwave popcorn, 8-ounce salad dressing, toilet paper, tissues, toothpaste, paper towels, bars of soap, shampoo and deodorant. For more information, call the chamber at 508-836-4444.

Babson to celebrate Healey's inauguration

Babson College in Wellesley celebrates the inauguration of Kerry Murphy Healey as its new president on Oct. 18. Healey, who assumed the presidency in July, is Babson’s 13th president and the college’s first woman president. The inauguration festivities celebrate entrepreneurship with the inauguration ceremony starting at 2:30 p.m. For more information, visit babson.edu.

Focus on Fitness to hold an open house

Focus on Fitness holds an open house Oct. 19 from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 63 Fountain St., Framingham. Guests may join the health club for only $25 and no monthly payment until November. For more information, visit fofhealthclub. com.

Natick's Belkin Farm to offer free pumpkins

Each visitor with a paid admission to Belkin Family Lookout Farm on Oct. 19 and Oct. 20 will receive one free pumpkin at the U-Pick Barn while supplies last. Located at 89 Pleasant St. South in South Natick, the farm is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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Sepaton unveils data protection solution

Sepaton Inc., the Marlborough-based maker of the world's fastest backup and recovery platforms, this week unveiled the Sepaton VirtuoSO data protection solution. Based on Sepaton’s new OptiScaleTM architecture, VirtuoSO delivers industry-leading performance with groundbreaking advancements in deduplication, grid scalability, comprehensive multi-protocol support and smart data movement, the company stated in a press release. The result is the industry’s highest-performing scale-out, network attached storage-based data protection solution with five times the capacity of competitive solutions at initial release with up to 22 times the capacity planned for future releases, Sepaton added. The solution is engineered to address the critical needs of enterprise data centers, manage explosive data growth and new data types, with support for virtualization, Big Data, cloud and other emerging use cases, the company said. Sepaton will preview VirtuoSO this week at Storage Networking World Fall 2013 at the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center in Long Beach, Calif.